Parmigiano Reggiano at the CASEIFICIO UGOLOTTI cheese factory, Parma, Italy

Our continued wanderings around the heat of northern Italy lead us to Parma, Italy, in between Bologna and Milan. (With Modena, the capital of balsamic vinegar production and Ferrari cars between Bologna and Parma). The two primary agricultural products here are Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and Parma Ham. We opted for the cheese.

There are 5 adjacent régions (Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Mantua and Bologna) located between the Po and Reno rivers that make up the exclusive area that produces Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. "Parmigiano Reggiano" is a controlled brand that represents a "protected domain of origin" (PDO/DOP). "The Consortium" determines the rules of the Parmigiano game and these rules have been codifed in EU law. There are many aged, salted white cheeses, but Parmigiano Reggiano only comes from here. In fact, the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium is actively involved in the process. First, and foremost, the Consortium must approve your factory, assign you a number and it is the authority that comes and inspects your product and stamps it as 1st, 2nd or 3rd quality.

We toured the Caseificio (literally "casein maker") Ugolotti (the founder of the factory 40 years ago). The factory, shop and restaurant are on the outskirts of Parma, just a short city bus ride from the downtown.

The factory must (and does) receive milk twice a day from local farms. All of the milk used to produce Parmigiano Reggiano must be from the region. The diet of the cows in terms of grass, hay and corn is specified and controlled by the Consortium. You can read all the rules of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese making for yourself.

The morning milk run

None of the milk is pasteurized. The evening milk is allowed to sit and separate into cream and skim milk. This skim milk from the evening before is mixed with the whole, fresh (must be delivered within two hours of milking) morning milk. Some of the whey is added back in. Rennet (only from calf's stomach!) is then added to the milk. the excess whey is sold for animal feed. Nothing is wasted.

The Caseificio Ugolotti, we visited, produces 18 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano every day (7 days a week).

Each vat holds 1000 liters of milk. Note that the photo is deceiving. The bottom of the vat is below the floor. Each vat will produce two wheels of cheese which (when dried) will weigh 40 Kg. This factory produces 2 wheels a day, thus 9 vats.

After the curd forms and is broken up, the cheese is cooked at a precise temperature and coagulates into granules and these settle to the bottom of the vats. 

After an hour or so of settling, the cheese is pulled up by hand; a two man job.

And placed into the initial molds. 

The cheese will sit under a weight in the milk room for 24 hours. The goal is extracting water. From there, they go to the salting room.

The cheese wheels, now 24 hours old, will be placed in metal forms, lined with a stencil that has the all important labeling information that goes onto the cheese rind. The factory's official number. After another 24 hours they are placed in the salt baths. This is a fully saturated salt solution. they will stay here for 3 months after which the salt has penetrated 3 cm into the wheel. Each wheel is turned daily, by hand.

After 3 months, the cheese wheels are moved to the aging room.

Parmigiano Reggiano must be aged for a minimum of 12 months. There are 12,000 wheels shown in this picture, aged from 12 months to 60 months! At a retail price of approximately €15 per kilogram, this picture represents approximately $10M of cheese!!

After a year of aging, the Consortium visits the factory (quarterly) and assigns a grade to each wheel. This is done, by hand,  by tapping the wheel and listening for hollows. First quality has no hollows or large cracks. The Parmigiano Reggiano brand and year is then hot branded into the side of the first quality wheels. Minor hollows and cracks are assigned second quality. The second quality wheels are scored with 1 cm ridges to identify them as second quality. They can still be sold for industrial and restaurant purposes. The third quality wheels have all Parmigiano Reggiano labelling removed and are sold for industrial purposes.

Interestingly, the contract of the master cheese maker (and, of course, you must have a master cheese maker) specifies he must produce 90% 1st quality wheels per year. If he produces more than a certain amount of 3rd quality wheels, he is on the hook financially for them! (I asked about malpractice assurance but they didn't understand the concept.)

The storage room is kept quite warm and quite humid so some mold does form on the outside of the wheel. It's not a health risk but doesn't look good so there is, of course, an automated robot (fromt he 1950's) that moves down the rows and brushes the rims of the cheese wheels free of mold.

Of course, after the tour, we had a delicious tasting of 12, 24 and 36 month aged chesses. And, there is a beautiful restaurant and gift shop in which to buy further products. Overall, a great factory tour and a very interesting product.